[Most friends/fans of The SCAR Project are familiar with this beautiful face. Many of you followed Vanessa Tiemeier’s journey via The Live Sincerely Project. This week marks the second anniversary of her passing. It has been a rough week for her family, the SCAR family/community, and all of us who loved the girl who put the V in living sincerely and left a V-shaped hole behind, in our hearts. For me, Facebook has been reminding me of all the lasts I got to have with her. #everydamnday. Like I’d forget or something. I haven’t forgotten, nor have I gotten over losing her presence in this world and in my life. And I hope I never do cuz how shallow would that be of me? Recently I was asked to write an article about Vanessa for SoHza magazine, honoring her memory. I thought I’d share an extended version of it here, along with a few extra pictures, because even though Facebook posted the last last on Feb. 23 when she took her last breath and went to her rest, I’m not done. Remembering V. I can’t write Vanessa’s SCAR story from her perspective. I hope someday to share her SCAR story from her husband Billy’s and her sisters’ Jess and Christina’s perspectives on this space. But in the meantime, in memory of Vanessa and in the spirit of living sincerely, here’s my story about my beautiful friend V.]

by Joules Evans

You know how a yes or no decision can sometimes feel like a coin toss…but then that yes or no somehow sends out some kind of a ripple effect that alters your course? Or how randomly bumping into a beautiful stranger at an art gallery in NYC can sincerely change your life? That’s what happened to me on a Saturday afternoon in October of 2010 when I got invited on a roadtrip to the Big Apple to see the world premiere of The SCAR Project and met Vanessa Tiemeier.

It was a Saturday afternoon on my first day in the city that never sleeps, and I was feeling the energy as I stepped into the holy hush of the exhibit, to take a private gallery tour with SCAR Project photographer David Jay and a few of the models who were on hand. I really didn’t know what I was walking into. It seemed like such a simple left turn into the gallery off Soho, but it ended up being more of that proverbial left that I shoulda taken in Albuquerque. And am so glad I did.

When my friend Shelly invited me to go to the opening with her during chemo one day, I remember thinking that I was already pretty breast cancer aware. I didn’t even Google The SCAR Project because really all I heard when she asked me to go with her was ROADTRIP TO NYC. Which meant, 10 hours in the car not the chemo lounge, and a weekend in the Big Apple that would take girls night out to a whole new level.

When I walked into the gallery and face to face with SCAR Emily’s portrait, I realized I was not as breast cancer aware as I thought I was. She was baring her scars AND a pregnant belly.

Her absolute reality, surviving cancer, was a completely different story than mine. Since I was 41 when I was diagnosed, I had already had my children, nursed my babies; they were all teenagers at that point in my journey. Emily had faced cancer, and was facing me, with child, without breasts.

And then I met Vanessa.

She and her husband Billy were standing beside her SCAR portrait. When she shared her SCAR story, I learned more about her absolute reality of surviving cancer. SCAR stands for Surviving Cancer. Absolute Reality. It’s an awareness campaign that young women can and do get breast cancer.

Vanessa’s absolute reality of surviving cancer was completely different from both mine, and Emily’s. The truth is, everybody’s is. But I had never thought about it like that because I only knew my own reality. Bumping into Vanessa that day 5 years ago cracked me and mine wide open.

Vanessa was only 25, newly married, and she and Billy were ready to begin filling the quiver…when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Vanessa had always dreamed of a really full quiver. She and her sisters, Jessica and Christina, were always very close, both growing up, and as grown-ups. They’d even started a graphic design business called Blustery Day Designtogether. Vanessa wanted all that and more, for the children she dreamed of having.

Christina, Vanessa, Jessica

Prior to that opening of the exhibit, Vanessa had already fought a second battle with the disease, bared her (new and old) scars again by posing for a second SCAR photograph, and shared her SCAR story in the EMMY award-winning SCAR documentary, Baring It All, by Patricia Zagarella.

The SCAR Project meant so much to Vanessa, because, as she told me many times, being a graphic designer, she was way more visual than verbal, and this was the best way she could articulate her new reality. It was her way of showing the world what a young woman’s absolute reality of surviving cancer really looked like.

A broken pinky finger, slammed in a drawer, and one precautionary Pet Scan later—which “lit up like a Christmas tree”—ended up as a Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer diagnosis. I don’t know what that feels like and I hope I never do, but she told me what it felt like to her. “I used to be super upbeat and positive like you after getting knocked around by breast cancer the first time. But the ultimate blow of hearing it’s back is a whole another story. Not so pink and fuzzy. Or hopeful. There is no cure. There is no finish line. There is only fight for your life for the rest of your life.”

The thing about Vanessa was that even though she knew she was living on “borrowed time” she was not going down without one helluva fight, nor having wasted that precious gift of time. Her mantra was LIVE SINCERELY, which she had tattooed on her left calf, with a pink peony, her favorite flower. That was her pink ribbon. Her message was basically, “don’t wait till you find out you are dying to really live.” This is how she lived and loved and fought. Fierce. Both for herself, and for other young women like her.

And there she was, standing beside her SCAR portrait, sharing her SCAR story.

When she mentioned she was from Cincinnati, something sparked in me. As much as she was standing there, literally, beside herself, next to her portrait, I was feeling quite beside myself, to tell her that I was also a survivor from Cincinnati. I told her how moved I was by the exhibit, her SCAR portrait and story, not to mention the crazy beautiful serendipity of our meeting…and would she like to work together to try and bring the exhibit to Cincinnati? “Yes,” she said, simply. “Let’s bring it.”

Somehow we did. Neither of us had ever done anything like producing a breast cancer event, let alone a major art exhibit before. We really didn’t know what we were doing. We fumbled around trying to find a proper venue for quite awhile. But then we met Litsa Spanos, owner of Art Design Consultants. When she heard about The SCAR Project, she offered to host the exhibit at her gorgeous “Gallery in the Sky” downtown.

But it almost didn’t. After 6 months of intense planning. Two weeks before the opening of our Cincinnati SCAR exhibit, Vanessa, who’d been dealing with severe headaches, got a bad report from the scans. The disease had spread to the lining of her brain, requiring immediate radiation. We talked about canceling the exhibit but Vanessa’s response to that was basically “the show must go on.”

Somehow it did. All I know is that we were an awesome team. We ended up raising $13,500 for our chosen local beneficiary: The Pink Ribbon Girls, and $7,500 for The SCAR Project. All I know is it had everything to do with Vanessa putting herself out there as the face of young breast cancer in Cincinnati. All I know was getting to work with Vanessa on something so beautiful and so much bigger that us all, changed my life. And I know Litsa feels the same way.

All I know is when the cancer wouldn’t back down, went to her brain, and kept progressing, Vanessa didn’t back down one bit either. She and her sisters created The Live Sincerely Project, to be her legacy, based on her motto. She spent the rest of her days sharing the project and encouraging people to take the pledge. A few of my last memories of my beautiful friend Vanessa, were of her hoping her movement would keep spreading, of her checking to see where in the world people had taken the pledge to Live Sincerely, and of her making 100’s of Live Sincerely signs with different fonts and borders. All I know is: Take that cancer. Vanessa won; you lost. She is free of you now but lives on in the hearts of everyone who was lucky like me to know her, or who will hear about Vanessa through The SCAR Project or her Live Sincerely Project. All I know is that despite everything you tried to throw at her, she still left a beauty mark that she was here.

When I think of Vanessa, I think she answered the poet Mary Oliver’s most poignant question so beautifully: “What are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?” Live Sincerely.

One of the loveliest perks of the role I get to play as exhibition coordinator and social media manager for The SCAR Project is collecting and sharing the SCAR girls’ stories here. Their portraits have impacted me (as they have you, as they have tens of thousands of others like you and me, who visit the exhibits, web site and follow the Facebook group) not only as a fellow breast cancer survivor but also on a basic human level. Like SCAR photographer David Jay says, “The SCAR Project’s deeper message is one of humanity. The acceptance of all that life offers us . . . all the beauty . . . all the suffering too . . . with grace, courage, empathy, and understanding. Ultimately, The SCAR Project is not about breast cancer, but the human condition itself; the images intend to transcend the disease, illuminating the scars that unite us all.”

The SCAR Project is filled with portraits of young women who have come to the place where, as Carly Simon described—from her own experience of having battled the bitch that is breast cancer—“she accepts the war she went through and is ennobled by her scars.”

Ennobled. Honestly, when I first heard about The SCAR Project from my friend Shelly while we were a pair of bald chicks hooked up to IVs in the chemo cocktail lounge, ennobled wasn’t the first word that popped into my head when I imagined a photographic exhibition of young women confronting breast cancer and baring their scars.

Road-trip. That was my first thought. Shelly and I met in the chemo lounge and the only time we’d ever spent together up to that point was in the chemo cocktail lounge, sitting side by side in pale blue recliners, waging the ugliest war either of us had ever fought and neither of us were feeling ennobled quite yet. But I was feeling like a road-trip to the Big Apple to see The SCAR Project Exhibition (which I hadn’t even Googled because she said it was an awareness campaign I already felt pretty breast cancer aware) sounded like just the ticket.

I wasn’t as breast cancer aware as I thought I was. I mean, I was aware of my breast cancer, my absolute reality of what surviving cancer, or at least fighting like hell to survive it, felt like, my scars. But then I saw Emily’s portrait at The SCAR Project Exhibition.

My scars are similar to Emily’s, but mine tell a different story. At the time of my diagnosis I was a 42-year-old mother of three teens. I nursed them all as babies. In Emily’s portrait I saw a beautiful young mother-to-be confronting a completely different reality of surviving cancer than me.

That quote from Carly Simon comes to mind when I think about standing in front of Emily’s picture, the first time I saw The SCAR Project. Especially, that word: ennobling.

I was super fortunate to get to meet a couple of the SCAR girls that day. I was on a gallery tour with SCAR Photographer David Jay, and Vanessa Tiemeier and Melissa Adams were both in attendance for the tour, standing beside their SCAR portraits, emanating beauty, courage, and grace. Eager to share their SCAR stories. Ennobled.

As their images “transcend the disease, illuminating the scars that unite us all” so do their stories, and their lives, as well. And as I’ve gotten to know the SCAR girls over the past few years, I thought you might like to know some of the noble things these ennobled women are doing, to not just move forward, but to pay it forward.

Vanessa, who at 31-years-young has been battling breast cancer since she was 25, has long had a motto of living sincerely. She even has a live sincerely tattoo with a pink peony on her left calf. It’s her trademark “not a pink ribbon”. Shortly after she was diagnosed with a recurrence of metastasis to the brain, she and her sisters founded The Live Sincerely Project to encourage others to LIVE… really live NOW… and not wait till they find out they are dying to start really living. If you haven’t checked it out and taken the Live Sincerely Pledge, it’s not just the best way you can send Vanessa a little love and encouragement, but don’t just do it “For V” Do it for you. That’s what she’d want, anyway, because that’s how she rolls, living sincerely as she goes.

SCAR girl Barbie Ritzco aka Soldier Interrupted aka Marathon Barbie is one of the most kickass inspirational people I know. Besides RUNNING ACROSS THE COUNTRY with Steve Cannon and his coast to coast for cancer million dollar fundraiser for Livestrong this summer, Barbie and her SCAR sister Sara Hamilton have co-founded Flat AND Fabulous, an organization supporting women who are living the “Flat AND Fabulous” lifestyle after having their breasts amputated from confronting breast cancer, rather than, for one reason or another, having gone the reconstruction route. There is a Flat AND Fabulous Awareness group HERE. If you are living the Flat AND Fabulous lifestyle and looking for others who have been there and done that click HERE.

On the other end of the spectrum, SCAR girl Cary Goldberg found that after rocking a flat chest for five years, her posture started to suffer and she needed a foundation garment to get her standing straight again. Frustrated by uncomfortable mastectomy bras that constricted the free flow of lymph and were just plain ugly, she was thrilled to discover a women run sports bra company called Handful. Once she tried on their pocketed sports bra, fell in love with it and learned it was already L8000 mastectomy bra approved, she became COO and part owner of the company. Handful is changing their manufacturing to Made in the USA and Cary dreams of making more products that help survivors as their four-woman company grows. Check out this video about Handful HERE.

Speaking of fabulous, SCAR girl Sylvia Soo founded Cancerfabulous to chronicle her own experience fighting back with style, to inspire, and as a resource for other young women fighting breast cancer. Sylvia is currently working on a book with Rethink Breast Cancer called, Cancer Fabulous Diaries, which is due out later this year. Her short film, Dear Sisterwon the Amazing Grace Award at Toronto’s Breast Film Fest last year. Sylvia is also one of the four women (as is Vanessa Tiemier) featured in the EMMY Award winning SCAR Project documentary, Baring It All.

Heather Salazar and Diana Featherstone both work with a non profit organization called the Pink Ribbon Girls, whose mission is to provide personalized support to young women throughout all phases of the breast cancer journey, and whose motto is: “No one travels this road alone”.

Amber Crouse founded (or rounded up;) the F*CK Cancer Posse. The Knoxville based commuity seeks to reach young cancer survivors and their caregivers/co-survivors so that they do not have to face cancer alone.

Jocelyn Banks founded Mommy Has Breast Cancer, an organization whose mission is all about supporting the entire family throughout a diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.

Shay Sharpe’s Pink Wishes organization grants wishes to young women diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, between the ages of 18-40 and facing a terminal diagnosis from their physician.

[Today’s guest blogger is no stranger to The SCAR Blog. When Facebook removed some of the SCAR images this time last year, Sara wrote an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg on her BLOG which I cross-posted here, with her permission. When quite a few of the SCAR girls were making preparations to head south for The SCAR BAMA exhibition, Sara wrote about it on her blog and once again I snagged it for reprint HERE (again, with her permission) because the SCAR sisterhood, which her article provides a lovely glimpse into, is one of the many beautiful things that has evolved from David Jay’s The SCAR Project Exhibit that many might be unaware of. When Sara got back from The SCAR BAMA exhibition, she wrote a beautiful recap on her blog, which of course also landed HERE, because she’s a generous soul like that, not to mention a dear friend. At which point I played both those cards in the latter part of the previous sentence and told her I thought with 3 SCAR blogs under her belt it was probs time for her to share her story. Of course, she did. And here it is. Thank you, Sara, love!]

by Sara Bartosiewicz-Hamilton

12/12/12…I call it my lucky day…the day my life started over. I had no idea how true this would be. Leading up to the 12th day of the 12th month of the 12th year, I was filled with anxiety, ready to have it over…at the same time, I wondered if I was sure. I kept telling myself, if ever I think I’m not ready, I’ll pull the plug…I still showed up. I started tearing up as the nurse prepped me for the surgery. She asked if I was okay.Yeah. She asked if I was sure I wanted to do this. Yeah. She said, it doesn’t make it any easier, does it? And that’s exactly what it was…I knew in my heart and my head it needed to be done…but knowing it, believing it, didn’t make it easier. Much like the beginning of this journey.

I was tested for a gene mutation in the fall of 2006. I knew I had a 50/50 chance of having the mutation…my spirit was prepared to hear I was positive. And I was. I was told I had the BRCA2 mutation and, through tears, I responded by asking the genetic counselor to set me up with what came next. She was confused. I was only 29, surely I could wait, surely I didn’t need to do anything until I was 40. Genetic testing was not new but it was not common yet either…I was the youngest person she had tested. I knew what I needed to do. I wanted to have a mastectomy. Take out the tissue that had an 85% chance of turning on me. Get it out, let me live my life. Let me give up this fear.

Fear. Our family tree of cancer explains my fear. In my mind, it was a matter of when, never a matter of if. I was surprised by some of the backlash I received from my choice to have a prophylactic mastectomy. I was naive. I was young. I didn’t realize there was a lot of fear behind that anger…sometimes, guilt. I couldn’t handle it so I shut myself away. I tried to find someone, anyone on the internet. My oncological surgeon told me she knew there were other young women choosing to have PBMs…I just couldn’t find any. I was isolated. Friends closest to me told me I shouldn’t do it if I couldn’t be happy. Happy? Was that what I was supposed to feel? I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be happy about. This wasn’t a boob job. This was the removal of my body parts…my tissue ripped out of my body. And replaced…a plastic mound shoved under my muscle. A plastic mound that would grow over time as I was injected with more fluid, that would continue shoving my muscle around. And all of this to evade cancer…that may eventually come for me anyways.

Sara (29) and her daughter Ms P one week after her prophylactic bilateral mastectomy in Jan. 20007

A girl found me on MySpace. She was the one who told me about the SCAR Project and she asked if I wanted to meet her and a couple other girls in NYC to be photographed. I looked up the website and was speechless. I was looking at young women…I was looking at me. I immediately reached out to David Jay:

David~ I would like to be involved…I have never had breast cancer but have the BRCA2 gene (mutation). I had a prophylactic mastectomy at 29 because the gene (mutation) gave me an 85% chance of getting breast cancer. I understand your project is for women who have fought breast cancer but I thought I would volunteer in case you could use me as well. Regardless, I look forward to seeing the finished project. When I was getting ready for my surgery, I was desperately searching for what I would look like afterwords. I couldn’t find pictures of young women…this is powerful. Thank you.”

I was so excited (and terrified at the same time) when David wrote back and asked me to come. I wanted to participate because I wanted there to be a photo. I wanted the next 29 year old to be able to find my photo and be able to find the courage to have a PBM…to know she was going to be okay. I was terrified because I was going to be photographed. Because there would be a photo of me…there was going to be a photograph of my scars. There was going to be a photograph documenting myimperfection…

It didn’t help when I received an email that it may be best to wait. When I asked why, I was told he was receiving emails and he wasn’t sure what to think. I was devastated. And then I was enraged. I received a copy of the email because my sister went to bat for me and was sent a copy of the email:

Please re consider the shooting of Sara… She is Not appropriate for this project. she NEVER Had cancer. She only took off her breasts as prevention!!! Everyone in her friend circle and family knows that she is not stable to do this!!!! She does things like this for attention. Who??? Has a DOUBLE MASTECTOMY at age 30 when NO cancer is present??? Someone who is not STABLE. Her mother has NEVER had cancer. Her GRANDMOTHER has NEVER had cancer. This is not the same as your other candidates. PLEASE DO NOT encourage her behavior… Now. I say this with love but as you can understand MANY of us are tired of her charades. And having her half naked in a magazine for us all to explain to people who are AWARE that she NEVER had cancer in the first place. It makes a mockery of those women who have actually almost lost their lives.”

It was obvious to me this was not someone closest to me – my grandma did, in fact, have cancer, she had died of cancer. On the flip side, to be honest, I think it hurt so much because I wondered myself. Am I the only one who goes through a double mastectomy at 29 (ahem, NOT 30) without there being cancer present? As I tried to explain the untruth throughout the email, I expressed that I had been wrestling with guilt. Guilt that my choice was done out of fear…guilt that I was a sissy because I was too afraid to get cancer.

When I finally made it out to NYC, I had a lot on my mind. I had also received emails from this same person spewing ugly things. At that time in my life, I was unable to recognize that sometimes people are ugly because of what is inside of them…and it has nothing to do with me. I was unable to detach from their words, unable not to internalize them. While it didn’t stop me from going, it made me pause. Was I doing the right thing? I was the last girl to be shot that day. I arrived after everyone was done being photographed (read: dressed). I sat down and had my make-up and hair done and then it was time. The point at which I was taking off my shirt, it seemed like a really crazy idea. Other than my doctors, my hubby was the only one who had seen the scars and he saw them with the security of a dark room and, even then, I did what I could to hide them. I was asked beforehand to bring something that had meaning or relevance to my shoot. I brought a charm with a picture of my littles on it and I also brought a photo of my mom and two of her sisters. I had something which explained without words the reason for my prophylactic bilateral mastectomy and I had something to explain why I would choose this. David went with the photo of my mom and two of her sisters. I’m so thankful he did – for all of time, my photo explains the family ties and the multiple generations our mutation has affected.

Sara’s SCAR Portrait taken in Dec. 2007, about a year after her PBM

Something happened at my photo shoot. Something I was not even aware of yet. I found a place where I belonged. A place of acceptance. A place of understanding. A place of love. I am forever thankful for my first SCAR sisters. They helped me embrace that my story was valid…they helped me see I was accepted into their “club” without having cancer. They helped pull me back on my feet when I didn’t even realize I was floundering. And they helped me grow taller that day. They were impressed by my courage and strength. I didn’t believe them quite yet but I held onto them, hoping they were right.

Fast forward a few years. It seemed surreal as I sat across from someone I called my best friend and heard similar words of ugliness being flung at me. Ironically, it was my five year “boobiversary” – five years after my mastectomy and I was being assaulted with words. Self-mutilator. In need of a therapist, not a surgeon. I had just disclosed I was planning on removing my implants. It was something I had been quietly considering for a while. I had not talked about it with many people: hubby, my plastic surgeon and with one of my SCAR sisters at the Cincinnati exhibit. I was having daily discomfort and pain and was hopeful that having my implants extracted would help relieve this. I was at the point of being ready to schedule the surgery and wanted the moral support of my friend…my “best” friend. I was caught off guard. The me who showed up for my PBM would have allowed this assault to continue until completion…the me who spent the past couple years embracing my new reality was strong enough to say stop…strong enough to walk away. Unfortunately, not before internalizing some of the accusations. I delayed my extraction for another year. I lived with the discomfort and pain as I searched my soul. I couldn’t deny what I was feeling but was I sure having my implants removed was the right choice?

I was back in Cincinnati when I had the courage to say it was time. I came home and the first conversation hubby and I had was that I wanted to schedule the extraction. It seemed like more than coincidence, perhaps a sign from the universe, when I was opening the mail immediately after our conversation and I opened lab results from my doctor confirming an autoimmune disease. When I had my pre-surgery appointment with my plastic surgeon, it was both amusing and sad to hear my plastic surgeon ask me what had taken so long. He told me he could tell this was the right choice for me…over a year before.

Fast forward to 12/12/12. My life truly did start over. When I woke up from surgery, the discomfort was gone. As my body healed, so did my spirit. I noticed I started looking at myself in the mirror without the little black box to censor what I was seeing. I realized I was the most comfortable I had been in my own body since my mastectomy. I found myself forgetting about the extraction and am no longer reminded daily of my surgeries, my BRCA mutation, or my lingering fear cancer will find me. Life started over, no longer hindered by the past.

I have been incredibly blessed – I always had someone in my corner. And, as my journey progressed, that corner became fuller and fuller. I choose to include the pain and judgment of the past because it is, unfortunately, what many women in my shoes continue to hear. However, while those hurtful words have no power over me, they give me the ability to reach out to someone else and say, I understand. I heard that too. I am hopeful that sharing will also help those who would place judgment to step back and recognize, it’s okay if you would never make the choices I made but it doesn’t give you the right to try to say you could live my life better than me. When I look back, I remember vividly the isolation I felt before my prophylactic mastectomy and again, feeling in the extreme minority as I was considering my extraction. I don’t ever want any woman to be completely alone. I recently started a Facebook group with my fellow SCAR sister Barbie – it’s called Flat & Fabulous. We are actively on the hunt for our fellow sisters who have had a mastectomy and, for one reason or another, do not have reconstruction. It has been both validating and heart breaking as I get emails from a stranger telling me she never knew there was someone else like her. Our page offers support, encouragement, and LOTS of laugh as we all go forward with living our new reality.

I recently wrote about The SCAR Project Exhibition in Birmingham and Joules texted me to ask if I would share my article here on The SCAR Project blog. About five minutes after she told me it was up and asked me to proof it, I received another text that said now that I’d written for the blog THREE times, but had yet to share my own SCAR story… “it’s time.”

So, this is my story. It spans over my lifetime. It starts at my mastectomy. And again at my extraction. I am incredibly thankful for the lessons I’ve learned along the way about love, friendships, life, and what is truly important. Trying my best to Live Sincerely.every.single.day.

Sara’s Live Sincerely Photo (taken with her family last summer) for The Live Sincerely Project

When the international SCAR Project exhibition premieres in Washington, DC this October, kicking off Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2012 from our Nation’s Capitol, the timing couldn’t be more perfect if it tried.

Besides pulling the proverbial pink carpet out from under October, the DC exhibition is also smack dab in the heat of election season.

“In the end, by bringing The SCAR Project to our city, we hope to make a strong statement about breast cancer by showing our country what it really looks like,” said Donna Guinn Kaufman, breast cancer survivor, former vice-president of the Tigerlily Foundation (supports young women before, during and after BC) and founder of the Kill the Cancer Beast Foundation (empowering people with cancer to fight), the organization spearheading production of The SCAR Project DC Exhibition. “We hope that The SCAR Project will change the way that people look at this disease, seeing it for what it is, terrifying, disfiguring and deadly, and as such, take real action to end it.”

Last month Kaufman and her planning committee of mostly survivors and previvors kicked things into high gear toward that end at their SCAR Project DC Exhibition Kickoff Fundraiser which was held at The Dunes art gallery. (Thank you for your gracious hosting of the event, Deidree Bennett, Fine Arts Director at The Dunes.)

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(Thank you to all the photographers who covered the event: Kipp Burgoyne, Marcus Bennett, Diane Crawford, Joey Darley, and Mayrev Mary Goren for all your lovely photos. And a special thank you goes out to Kristen Berset, WUSA9 sports anchor and reporter for her graceful emceeing of the event. Also to WUSA9 weekday morning anchor Andrea Roane for her gracious support of The SCAR Project DC Exhibition.)

If I were writing notes on cocktail napkins during the SCAR DC kickoff fundraiser, here’s a few of the highlights I’d have scribbled down:

Breast cancer is not prejudiced – SCAR girl Heather Salazar (caucasian) adopted her friend’s daughter after her friend (African-American) passed away from breast cancer. Then Heather was also diagnosed with breast cancer.

Breast cancer does not wait until you are “old enough to get breast cancer” – SCAR girl Eliza Hewitt who was diagnosed last year at age 22.

Breast cancer does not care if you are in a wheelchair because you already have Cerebral Palsy. – SCAR girl Sara Boghdan.

Breast cancer is not very patriotic. – SCAR girl Marathon Barbie the Marine who was diagnosed while serving our country in Afghanistan.

Breast cancer does not play fair. -SCAR girl Darcie who shared recent news of her breast cancer’s progression. (Cheers to your health, love, and godspeed beautiful Darcie, as you strive for stable disease once more.)

Breast cancer may SCAR but it does not define those who’ve stared down its ugly face and face their own absolute realities of surviving cancer. And yet, get a bunch of these crazy ass kicking cancer chicks in a room together sharing their SCARs and all I can say is cancer better watch out. One of these chicks is a marine and the rest of the women in the room have her back.

With that said, here’s the drill for the SCAR Project DC Exhibition:

Monday, October 1, the first day of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Kaufman is organizing a “Young Women Surviving Breast Cancer Day on Capitol Hill.” Kaufman is arranging meetings for any young women who can make the event to meet with their Senators and Representatives while young women in SCAR DC t-shirts deliver invites for The SCAR Project DC Exhibition to members of Congress and and their staff on Capitol Hill.

Monday evening, The SCAR Project DC will host a VIP Reception/Press Conference by invitation only from 6:30 to 8 p.m. to kickoff the exciting week of DC Exhibition events and introduce The SCAR Project to the nation’s Capitol.

The DC Exhibition will open to the public the same day Monday, October 1 and will run until Sunday, October 7. General admission hours will be from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (except for during ticketed gallery tours with the photographer, Monday evening VIP Reception/Press Conference and Thursday evening’s Black & White Opening Night Gala). The price of general admission is FREE.

There will be daily gallery tours with SCAR Project Photographer David Jay, and when possible, various SCAR girls will be available for Q&A. Stay tuned for a schedule of gallery tours TBA.

A Black & White Opening Night Gala will be held on Thursday, October 4. Tickets must be purchased in advance on the Eventbrite link below. A special discounted price is offered for a pair of tickets purchased before September 1. Also a special “Buy a Ticket for a Survivor” at a discounted price is offered so no survivor who wants to go to the gala is left behind.

On Friday, October 5 after the gallery closes for the day there will be a special ticketed After Hours Party with the SCAR crowd.

On Saturday, October 6 Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Patricia Zagarella will be on hand for a special screening of her EMMY Award-winning SCAR Project documentary, Baring It All. Zagarella, David Jay, and a few of the SCAR girls will be available for a Q&A session afterward.